The Great Amen

Narrator: The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals presents the timeless teaching of Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse.
Choir: Amen.
Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Amen. We join together and understand that we gather in the church, not as strangers in a lecture room, but as brothers in Christ, bound together by the common answer of our faith, which witnesses of His common life in all of us together. Each of us must answer to the Lord in the quietness of His own heart. None is accountable to any other. He has given us the model of Himself. We must seek to be fashioned like Him.
Choir: Thy word is truth, for God He gave to teach, reprove, correct and train. Equip by it we can pursue the work God has for us to do. God's word is all the Christian needs to grow in grace and do good deeds.
Narrator: Over a half a century ago, the late Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, then pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, saw the need to spread God's word beyond the hearing of his local congregation. He started the radio ministry, which has become known as Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible. The application of God's word, as taught by Dr. Barnhouse, is as relevant today as when he first taught over the radio airwaves decades ago. The message we'll be featuring on today's edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is entitled The Great Amen. Throughout the world, millions of Christians say, "Amen" when they finish praying or singing a hymn. Most of us probably say this word without giving it much thought. But this little word actually carries tremendous meaning and significance. What are we really saying when we say "Amen?"
Narrator: The scripture text for this edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible, Romans chapter 15 and verse 33. Here again is Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse with a message entitled, The Great Amen.
Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Through the Lord Jesus Christ, we come unto Thee, our Father and our God, and in the Holy Spirit. We thank Thee that Thou art the God of truth. In Thee is no variableness, nor shadow cast by turning. Thou art not as shifting man, unstable and unpredictable, but Thou art the immutable unchangeable God. We love Thee for this, because in Thee our restless souls can come to perfect rest, and our joyless souls find their joy. Daily Thou dost load us with benefits. We worship Thee and we ask that in this hour Thou shalt bless Thy truth to each heart, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. My text today is found several times in the last part of Romans, in chapter 15:33, and three times in chapter 16, and it consists of the single text, "Amen," the single word. A church convention was once held in Southeast Asia, and two delegates were housed in the same room. One was a Tamil from South India, the other a Malay from Singapore. Neither spoke the other's language. They stood looking at each other. Finally one of them smiled and said, "Hallelujah." The other replied with a broad smile, "Amen." Their contact was made. No other words could have done it. The name of the Lord Jesus Christ is pronounced in fashion so different in various languages that the listener would have to exercise considerable skill in order to make the adjustment. But "Hallelujah" is the Hebrew word for "Praise Jehovah." "Amen" is one of the Hebrew words for "faithfulness." It is a three-letter word in the Hebrew, and its verb form has some beautiful meanings. The lexicon defines "Amen" as follows: "to prop, to stay, to sustain, to support," especially to "support with the arm, to carry a child." The participle form means "a nurse," one who carries and cares for a child, or who guards and brings up a child. And the verb also means "to found, to erect." And its participle is used for "an architect, a workman." In its intransitive form the verb means "to be shored up," and hence "to be firm, unshaken," such as one may safely lean upon, and thence "to be faithful, trustworthy, sure," so that one can lean upon or build upon it. It's used of a firm place in a wall where a nail can be driven in. This in Isaiah 22:23. But most important, however, is the use of the Hebrew "Amen" as a name of God. In Isaiah 65, a great contrast is drawn between those who remained faithful to God and those who depart from Him. The truth is completely obscured in the King James Version, and only partly revealed in the Revision. I would translate from the Hebrew as follows: "But you who forsake the Lord, who forget My holy mountain, who set a table for Gad, the Syrian god of luck, and fill cups of mixed wine for Manu, the Assyrian god of fate or destiny, I will destine you to the sword, and all of you shall bow down to the slaughter, because, when I called, you did not answer; when I spoke, you did not listen. But you did what was evil in My eyes and chose what I did not delight in." "You shall leave your name to My chosen for a curse, and the Lord God will slay you. But His servants He will call by a different name, so that he who blesses himself in the land, shall bless himself by the God of the Amen. And he who takes an oath in the land shall swear by the God of the Amen, because the former troubles are forgotten and hid from My eyes." Oh, how wonderful this is! The God of truth, yes. The God of faithfulness, yes. All of this is included in that which the Hebrew so clearly states, "He is the God of the Amen." Oh, it's little wonder that Israel used this word as the congregational answer to the truth of God. It was the equivalent of a solemn oath. The first time we ever find the word "Amen" in the Bible is in the oath of jealousy in the book of Leviticus, where the woman was to agree to the test by saying solemnly, "Amen, Amen." Near the end of the book of Deuteronomy, we have the ratification of the law by Israel. For there we read in Deuteronomy 27, "And Moses and the Levitical priests said to all Israel, 'Keep silence and hear, O Israel. This day you have become the people of the Lord your God. You shall therefore obey the voice of the Lord your God, keeping His commandments and His statutes which I command you this day.'" And following this, there is a division of the law into 12 sections, pronouncing 12 curses upon anyone who breaks the law. And after each one of the 12 curses, we discover the ratification in these words, "And all the people shall answer and say, 'Amen.'" About a hundred years ago, the then Dean of Westminster wrote of this word "Amen" in the following terms: "It is like the Coronation Stone in Westminster Abbey, a fragment of our rock from the distant northern hills, belonging to a time long before the birth of the English monarchy and the English Church, of the American Republic and the American Union. The very sound of 'Amen' is Eastern. It's the very word which was heard through the courts of the temple of Jerusalem, and which was echoed backward and forward from Gerizim to Ebal, and from Ebal to Gerizim, these mountains where the temples were built. And further, having been thus in its origin Jewish, it has since become an inheritance of the whole of Christendom. There are Christians who do not use the creeds. There are Christians who do not use a written liturgy. There are Christians who have even a scruple in public worship at using the Lord's Prayer. But I believe that there is no church, French or English, Greek or Roman, Episcopalian or Presbyterian, no church which refuses to pronounce the word "Amen." So this then is the first lesson we have to learn from it: the antiquity, the universality of a custom is always worth remembering. It carries us out of ourselves. It places us in the free air of the hills of Palestine. It transports us back to the first ages of Christianity and even beyond them. It makes us feel that we belong, in the widest sense, to the Holy Universal Church. In the New Testament, the word "Amen" is found in 127 different verses. Many times it's found twice, because the Lord Jesus Christ so constantly said, "Amen, Amen, I say unto you." The older version reads "verily, verily," and the revision, "truly, truly." But in all these cases, it is the affirmation by the Lord Jesus that He is uttering divine truth. In 76 verses, the word "Amen" is found at the beginning of the sentence, and in 48, it's found at the end of the sentence. The remarkable thing is that it's always God who uses the word at the beginning of the sentence, and it's always man who uses it at the end. God declares that something is true, and the listener confirms that he believes that it is true. And thus the foundation of all is the truth of God, and the superstructure that we build on that foundation is our faith in the reliability of God. These two things, His truth and our faith, go together as father and child. We sing it in one of our great hymns, "He by Himself hath sworn, I on His oath depend. I shall on eagle's wings upborne to Heaven ascend. I shall behold His face. I shall His power adore, and sing the wonders of His grace forevermore." Now, what had been the use in the synagogue was continued in the early Christian church. Even the most solemn of all its prayers and blessings, the consecration prayer of the Lord's Supper, was not considered valid or complete till the people had given their assent to it by saying, "Amen." The presiding minister, says one who describes the Communion service in the second century, "gives thanks, and the whole congregation shout, 'Amen.'" It was so entirely felt to be a part of the service that no one failed to join in it. Now, just as now we should be surprised on coming to church or coming to the Communion to hear no prayer from the minister, so in those first ages there would have been an equal surprise if there had been no loud "Amen" from the people. It was a shout. It was a cheer. It was heard far and wide, we're told, like a peal of thunder resounding through the building. Such was the old "Amen." Now I do not say that we should revive this ancient form, that we should consider any prayer invalid which has not received the assent of the people, or that the people should shout out their "Amen" with a voice of thunder as they did in those earlier days. But the fact that this use has been handed down from those ancient customs brings before us in one short single word, the principle of true Christian worship: the duty and the right of the Christian congregation. For it is the assertion, over and over again repeated, of what may be called in the best sense of the word, our Protestantism. It declares to each one of us that the words which we hear in church are nothing unless we make them our own. The sympathy, the fellow feeling, the common understanding of the congregation is the lifeblood of Christian worship, Christian doctrine, and Christian preaching. Paul brings this out in his instruction to the Corinthian church. There had been excesses in connection with the use of foreign tongues. At first, tongues were given miraculously in order that the apostles might preach to people whose language they did not know. But by the time of the early church, this great act of divine evangelization had become corrupted, and some counterfeits had begun to ululate with a babble of sound that was not from the Holy Spirit. Paul told them that no believer should lose control of his speech. No man was ever to be carried out of himself. The spirit of the prophet, he said to the Corinthians, the spirit of the prophet is to be subject to the prophet. The spirit and the mind are to go together in every part of the worship, in the praying and in the singing. And he adds, "Otherwise, if you bless with the spirit, how can anyone in the position of an outsider, that is, a visitor without gifts, say the 'Amen' to your thanksgiving, when he does not know what you're saying?" So, here is the definite teaching that the individual who hears the word is to take part in the service by adding a fervent "Amen." It is because of this truth that the Church of England has called its very great liturgical work, "The Book of Common Prayer." For it's common both to the minister and to the people. The one who says the prayer does not function as a mediator between men and God, but as a pastor to feed the sheep, and as a minister to the needs of men. They hold spiritual truth in common, and the word "Amen" at the end of each prayer is intended to show that in the prayer there is something which at least someone in the church can heartily echo from his own secret needs. If it were enough for the minister to offer prayers or praises without the concurrence of the people, then common prayer and common worship would be needless. The people might be in their homes, and the minister might be in the church, and each might pray for himself. But there is a new force given to prayer and to praise, as well as to every other spiritual act of men, from the consciousness that others are praying with us, and that the same thoughts are throbbing at the same moment in a thousand hearts. Oh, unhappy the Christian who has been taught some form of Christianity which draws him away from the whole body of Christ. Let the "Amen" teach us of our oneness, as we acknowledge that we're sinners, that we're especially thankful for some mercy that the Lord has shown us, and that we acknowledge with all men, our need of very special help to preserve us from sin. In the Middle Ages, it was common to choose one knight to represent a group. He rode into the lists on his horse and encountered the champion of the enemy. All the hopes of the people rested on his lance. The Christian ministry is not such a conflict. Our warfare is not waged by a single preacher standing alone in the pulpit. We do not act as though the hopes of God were fixed only upon the word of the speaker. The "Amen" shows us that the congregation is involved. We are an army with banners. We march in a well-ordered company, and the administration of the Gospel is like the address of a commander to his troops. Now this is the nature of the Christian ministry and the response of the congregation. The Holy Spirit gives me to preach God's truth, and the Holy Spirit gives all of us to answer with a fervent "Amen." Three or four years ago, we were driving in the west between two meetings. We had spent a day at Zion National Park in Southern Utah, and had driven from there to Bryce Canyon. We had the Great Canyon to ourselves. We drove to the rim and got out. The quality of echo is extraordinary. And anything that is shouted comes back again and again in reverberations that are crystal clear. And in my loudest voice, I cried, "God!" And from a dozen echoing cliffs for a mile or two around, the word came back, "God, God, God, God." I then shouted, "Loves." And the wonderful word kept flying around. "You," and the invitation was thus given, "You, you, you, you." So it was that the Lord Jesus Christ again and again set the echoes flying with His, "Amen, Amen, I say unto you." And a million, million hearts answer, "Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen." The Lord said, "Amen, Amen, I say unto you, whosoever commits sin is the servant of sin." And sadly, my heart echoes, "Amen, Amen, Amen." Christ said, "Amen, Amen, I say unto you, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." And our hearts cry out, "Amen and Amen." The Lord Jesus cried out, "Amen, Amen, I say unto you, he who hears my word and believes on Him that sent me, has everlasting life and shall not come into judgment, but is past from death unto life." And our heart's speech echoes from rock to rock, "Amen, Amen, Amen." Listen to Him. "Amen, Amen, I say unto you, I am the door." "Amen, Amen, I say unto you, he who believes on me has everlasting life." "Amen, Amen, I say unto you, the hour is coming and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live." And to all these great truths, our hearts must echo their "Amen." It is true that I am a sinner. It is true that I need to be born again. It's true that Christ is the door. It is true that He gives us everlasting life so that we may believe. It is true that He shall raise us up from the dead at the last day. All of these shouts of glory from the heart of our Lord and Savior, find their echoing answer in my heart. It is His Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are His own, that rouses the cry. God's truth brings forth our trust. God's faithfulness evokes our faith. God's mighty foundation impels us to build upon it, with gold, silver and precious stones, and not with wood, hay and stubble. All that man can ever say by himself is "maybe." But God has spoken and declares, "These things shall be." He is the God of the Amen. He is the God of all faithfulness. How wonderful it is that in the book of Revelation, this title is given to the Lord Jesus Himself. It's solemn to note that it is spoken to the church at Laodicea, which was neither cold nor hot, and was therefore to be spewed out of His mouth. We read, "To the angel of the church of the Laodiceans, write, 'These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness.'" And here you see the word is defined. The "Amen" is none other than "the faithful and true witness." And again, how wonderful that He should take all the promises of God, all the promises of the Old Testament, all the promises of the New Testament, and bind them together in such a way that He can say to us, "For all the promises of God in Him are yea and in Him Amen, unto the glory of God by us." Now finally, let us note one great result of this "Amen" that begins in God and is answered in our hearts. There is a verse in Isaiah which, in the King James Version, reads, "Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation. He that believeth shall not make haste." Now the part about the foundation we can understand. But what about "he that believeth shall not make haste"? The word "to make haste" is a word that conveys the idea of running away. The Septuagint translates it, "shall not be ashamed," and this rendering is followed in three quotations of the New Testament in Romans 9 and 10, and in 1 Peter. So the full force of the word is that the one who believes shall not be in confusion, so that he would be in haste to run away. Oh, but when we understand the force of the first verb in the Hebrew, the truth becomes monumental, for the verb that is translated in all our versions as "believe" is the verb "Amen." So the deep meaning of the text then, there in Isaiah 28:16, is that he that answers "Amen" to God's declaration of truth shall not be in confusion that would cause him to hasten away into flight. "Amen," God says to us, providing us with a sure foundation. "Amen," we reply, and build all of our building upon Him. He has given us the model of Himself. We must seek to be fashioned like Him. Some maps are drawn one inch to a thousand miles, and others that are drawn an inch to a hundred miles or an inch to ten miles. The larger the scale, the better the map. Just let us be sure that our maps are not false, but that we have the true North and are drawn to scale. Then daily men shall see us like Christ. They shall hear our "Amen," and will know that we are answering to Him, deep calling unto deep. And they shall see Him in us, and glorify our Father which is in Heaven. Now, if we turn to the very last page of the Bible, to the last chapter of the Bible, to the last verse of the Bible, we will hear the echo of our text, "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen."
Narrator: The little word "Amen" says a great deal about the character and faithfulness of our God and the salvation that Jesus Christ has accomplished for us. We hope you have benefited from today's message entitled The Great Amen. To listen to additional Bible teaching by Dr. Barnhouse, visit us online at alliancenet.org. An audio copy of today's teaching is also available by calling us toll-free, 1-800-488-1888. Today's message again is entitled The Great Amen, or simply request message number R15-34. We would also like to make available to you a free copy of our booklet entitled "Walking by God's Word." If you try to walk in the dark, you may hurt yourself or become lost. The same will happen if we try to make it through life without the light of God's Word. The Bible declares, "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path." And this free booklet will help you apply the wisdom and light of the Scriptures to every area of daily living. Ask for your free copy of "Walking by God's Word" when you call or write. Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is a radio ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We exist to promote a biblical understanding and worldview. Drawing upon the insight and wisdom of Reformation theologians from decades and even centuries gone by, we seek to provide contemporary Christian teaching which will equip believers to understand and meet the challenges and opportunities of our time and place. We also produce the radio broadcast, The Bible Study Hour, featuring the teachings of the late Dr. James Montgomery Boice. And Every Last Word, featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Philip Graham Ryken. Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible comes to you through the generous gifts of listeners. If you have benefited from the broadcast and would like it to continue, please prayerfully consider a donation to help us keep this ministry on the air. For more information or to make a contribution to help further our work, contact us by calling toll-free 1-800-488-1888. That's 1-800-488-1888. Visit us online at alliancenet.org, or write Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, Box 2000, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103. Be sure to ask for a free resource catalog, featuring books, audio teachings, commentaries, booklets, videos, and a wealth of other materials from outstanding reformed teachers and theologians, including Doctors Donald Grey Barnhouse, James Montgomery Boice, Martin Lloyd-Jones, and Philip Graham Ryken. Thank you for listening. Join us again next time for more classic teaching on Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible.
Choir: The Bible has come and it equips to do the saving work for us. His cross our souls from death to life and rescues us from deepest night. Amazing gift wondrous so hard, the life imparting work of God.